Huskies focus on forming identity on offense
More than 150 days stand between UConn and its 2021 season opener on Aug. 28 at Fresno State — the first time the team will play a game in over a year and a half.
“You may see me before Fresno like in tears,” said UConn offensive coordinator Frank Giufre during media availability on Wednesday. “I’ve never been away from football this long.”
With still five months away from the start of the fall season, the Huskies are in the middle of their spring practice schedule and despite an overall young and inexperienced group on offense, they’ve laid out the groundwork to form their 2021 offense identity along with finding their next starting quarterback.
While Giufre said on Wednesday he doesn’t expect the team to decide on a starting quarterback until closer to the first week of the season, they’ve been impressed with all five options in the position group.
What are they looking for in a starter? The Huskies want a player who can be a dual threat on the field, confident with his speed just as he is with his arm, on top of being able to carry the team off the field as well.
“You want somebody who’s got a little, I don’t know what the word is, maybe it’s moxie, maybe it’s a little swag to them, whatever swag is, but you want somebody who’s got that stuff to him,” Giufre said. “We’re still in the process of trying to find who that guy’s gonna be.”
Sophomore Jack Zergiotis leads the quarterback group with the most experience,
playing in 10 games in 2019 and throwing for 1,782 yards with nine touchdown passes. Behind him is redshirt sophomore Steven Krajewski who played in four games that year, totaling 292 passing yards and one touchdown.
The other three in battle for the spot are freshman Tyler Phommachanh (Avon Old Farms School), redshirt-freshman Miles Forester and redshirt-junior Micah Leon, who was injured in 2019 after transferring from North Carolina State following the 2018 season.
“Honestly, my take on the quarterbacks, any one of them can sling it, honestly. I feel like we can win games with all five of them,” sophomore wide receiver Cam Ross said. “It’s just about who’s going to come out there and really take the job over.”
Ross stands at the top of the returning receiver corp after leading the team in 2019 with 60 receptions for 723 yards. During what would have been the 2020 season, Ross spent time rewatching his freshman year film and learning from it to best prep for 2021.
“It’s just I get almost mad at times because there was so much more I could have done,” he said. “I think just going into this year, I just keep reminiscing on that 2019 season, just fixing those freshman mistakes. And even if it wasn’t mistakes, even if it was just stuff I could have done more, [like] turn a 10-yard catch into a 90-yard touchdown. That’s things that are going to separate you, especially as a receiver that’s things that kinda get you to the next level, get that attention out there. That’s really what I’m trying to focus on.”
Senior tight end Jay Rose, a Southington High School alum who helped the Blue Knights to two Class LL state championships, is one of four true seniors on offense and enters this season as the next top returner in receptions under Ross (Rose was third in 2019 with an average of 23.73 yards per game).
In his fourth and final year at UConn, Rose said this season holds more meaning than the previous three. He’s gone from childhood fan of the Huskies to special teams standout and now returns as the top tight end.
“I’ve been here for four years now and we really haven’t had what I’d call a successful year,” he said. “It’s kinda just been in the building process, but this year I just want to see my guys just do what we put in the work to do. We’re gonna go out there and win some games and we’re all fighting to go to a bowl game.”